Blockchain Platform For Marine Insurance Launched By EY, Guardtime

Accounting and services firm Ernst & Young (EY) and software company Guardtime have launched a blockchain insurance platform for the global shipping industry.

Dubbed Insurwave, the platform leverages blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, Microsoft Azure infrastructure, and ACORD data standards. The platform allows each party in the shipping insurance ecosystem to use a blockchain platform that would record shipment information and automate insurance transactions when needed. The goal is to support more than half a million automated ledger transactions and help manage risk for more than 1,000 commercial vessels in the first year.

“It is a proud moment for a number of heavyweight industry participants to be live with a genuine end-to-end blockchain platform in the specialty insurance market,” said Shaun Crawford, EY Global Insurance Leader. “All parties have worked extraordinarily hard, as a closely knit team, to get to this exciting milestone. To move from proof of concept just a year ago to a fully functioning platform that is delivering immediate value to clients feels exceptional.”

Insurwave is currently being used by the members of the marine industry, including Denmark-based shipping giant Maersk, which contributed to the development of the blockchain platform as a pilot client. EY and Guardtime said they will soon roll out the platform to other types of business insurance for the marine cargo, global logistics, aviation, and energy sectors.

Lars Henneberg, A.P. Møller-Maersk A/S Head of Risk and Insurance, said that their ambition is to drive the digital transformation of the transport and logistics industry. He said they see this platform as a testament to the value that can be extracted from streamlining areas of the marine industry that still rely on manual and often complex procedures.

“Operating around 350 owned container vessels across the world, marine insurance takes up considerable resources for us,” said Henneberg. “Moving it to this platform is helping us automate manual processes and alleviate a range of inefficiencies and frictional costs in the way we have used to trade marine insurance.”